Weather & Climate

The impacts of climate change have the potential to damage and reverse developments achieved in improving the socio-economic well-being of many countries in Africa. A number of human-related factors compound the negative impacts of climate change, including but not limited to high population density, aging infrastructure, widespread poverty, and diseases.

In many parts of Africa, the demand for food, water and livestock forage is expected to double within the next 30years. In Eastern Africa, the populace is increasingly faced with extreme climatic events such as droughts and floods. These events have had severe negative impacts on multiple economic sectors across the sub region and tend to disproportionately affect the most vulnerable populations. Evidence suggests that future climate change may lead to a change in the frequency or severity of such extreme weather events, potentially worsening these impacts.

The development of evidence based decision support tools that incorporate current and future vulnerability is important for communities, governments, and the private sector to plan for the impacts of weather variability and climate change in the region. Key topics under this theme include: weather monitoring and forecasting, climate modeling and scenario planning, climate services, air quality monitoring, and adaptation planning.